With overnight parking on most residential streets in Guelph set to end for the season on Oct. 31, city hall is making plans to study whether on-street parking should be allowed on a year-round basis.
A comprehensive review of the feasibility and implications of modifying or eliminating the current overnight parking regulation was authorized by city council last week.
At the same time, council agreed to allow overnight parking to continue on one side of a stretch of Goodwin Drive again this winter, as it has been allowed for the past two winters, pending the results of the city’s comprehensive review of the issue.The aim is to “engage in a broader discussion about whether we want to do it city-wide or not,” said Coun. Ian Findlay, chair of the city’s operations, transit and emergency services committee.
Aside from Goodwin Drive, which is a collector road in a residential area of the south end with an average weekday traffic volume of 2,360 vehicles a day, the city currently allows year-round overnight parking only on 95 streets. These tend to be streets in older areas of the city with property constraints, such as no driveways and no options for creating more off-street parking, says a city staff report.
In 2008, council decided to amend its parking bylaw to allow overnight parking on all residential streets from May 1 to Oct. 31. The parking prohibition that had previously applied year-round is still in effect from Nov. 1 to April 30 each year.
In 2010, city hall got a request to permit year-round parking on Goodwin Drive to address residents’ concerns about a shortage of off-street parking at the condominium development at 37-45 Goodwin Dr.
This condo development has 319 parking spaces for the 251 units and meets the city’s zoning requirements for parking, says the report. Each unit in the development gets one dedicated parking space, but a parking shortage has developed anyway. “For those residents of the complex with more than one vehicle, some have purchased a second and third space at an additional cost,” the report says. “Others, who have additional parking needs, choose other options such as parking on Goodwin Drive or utilize the existing visitor parking spaces on site to supplement their parking needs.”
The city can’t tell property owners how to distribute their parking spaces, and the city has “some properties where all visitors parking has been removed in deference to the needs of the residents,” the report says. “In such cases, visitors are left to find alternative parking arrangements.”
As part of evaluating how things have gone in allowing year-round overnight parking on Goodwin Drive, city staff surveyed residents of the street in May 2011, the report says. The response rate was 20 per cent, with 51 of the 55 responses coming from residents of the condo complex.
The other four surveys were returned by residents of adjacent single-family dwellings, and all of them were opposed to year-round parking on Goodwin. Concerns included compromised snow clearing and the safety of children walking between parked vehicles, the report says.
“While snow removal is both more effective and efficient with on-street parking prohibited, staff acknowledge there are a number of approaches that can be taken to address snow removal should overnight parking be permitted,” it says.
The report says the benefits of providing parking should be weighed against the volume of pedestrians in the area and how often they cross the street.
The report concludes that “based upon the information received by staff to date, the provision of year-round on-street parking on Goodwin Drive has not resulted in any significant operational or safety concerns.”
Allowing overnight parking on Goodwin Drive year-round would likely lead to requests for similar action on other streets within the city, the report said. City hall’s review of whether overnight on-street parking should be allowed year-round across the city should be completed by June.